To Corrúpt. v.a. [corrumpo corruptus, Latin.]

1. To turn from a sound to a putrescent state; to infect.

2. To deprave; to destroy integrity; to vitiate; to bribe.

   I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 2 Cor. xi. 3.

   Even what things they naturally know, in those very things, as hearts void of reason, they corrupted themselves. Jude, v. 10.

   Evil communications corrupt good manners. 1 Cor. xv. 33.

                       All that have miscarried
   By underhand, corrupted, foul injustice. Shak. Richard III.

   I have heard it said, the fittest time to corrupt a man's wife, is when she's fallen out with her husband. Shakesp. Coriolanus.

   But stay, I smell a man of middle earth;
   With tryal fire touch me his finger-end;
   If he be chaste, the flame will back descend,
   And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
   It is the flesh of a corrupted heart. Shak. M. W. of Windsor.

   Language being the conduit whereby men convey their knowledge, he that makes an ill use of it, though he does not corrupt the fountains of knowledge, which are in things, yet he stops the pipes. Locke.

   Hear the black trumpet through the world proclaim,
   That not to be corrupted is the shame. Pope.

3. To spoil; to do mischief.